I am a former EUROCONTROL software analyst-programmer in Flight Plan Processing at Karlsruhe UIR control center Karlsruhe with operational responsibility of maintenance and enhancement 1992 - 1997. My experience is in large systems also outside the ATC area. Systems psychology and human computer interaction areas are of special interest to me and I have taught in these areas at Istanbul Yeditepe University computer department.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

On Seeing

ABOUT SEEING ... AND POSSIBLY, ABOUT SEEING GOD

Sometimes we do not see anything when we are thinking about something. We concentrate on a specific thing and lose vision of things around us. Concentrating is a mental process which comes after focusing. Focusing limits our area of attention whereas concentrating deepens it. Our brain retrieves the connections of the subject and gets deeper and deeper in the semantic tree. It binds the semantically related leaves to the
subject leave.

The fact that we lose our sight when strongly concentrating on an idea points at: "Seeing is related with semantic binding". If something does not exist in the semantice tree, namely if we do not know it, we can not see it. The sight that we receive through our eyes and vision mechanism, has to be binded with something in the semantic tree. Otherwise it will not be percieved.

If something has been viewed before but not seen - semantically processed, it can be recalled, namely it can be noticed that it had been viewed before.

An object must have been 'seen' - semantically processed, in order to be remembered - retrieved from the visual memory in the absence of present view. The remembered view will be retrieved from semantically organized memory.

The dilemma is: "If we cannot see what we have not seen before, how can we see anything at all?" If we cannot identify an image semantically our mind begins to breakdown that view to its pieces. If
identification is not possible the breakdown process continues. At each stage, effort is spent to make
semantical relations and establish semantical connections. The process stops at the basic drawing
elements, lines, colors, circles, basic figures. The lower the elements you get, the more general specifications are arrived at, hence the identifying value of elements get reduced. Retrieval gets more difficult by this situation.

If a complex figure is learned by semantical positioning such as "mother's view is this", the elements
belonging to the mother's view, face color, eyes etc. are placed in the baby's semantic tree. Other
persons' view must be related with these items in order to be seen. Otherwise they will cause fear
of an unknown view till the baby gets used to it, namely builds semantic connections of it.